January 15 - 16: Fell off the wagon a little...but the fall was fun!

January 15 - 16, 2012:

Over the past few days, I've had a lot of fun, but I've also made some poor fuel choices. Instead of displaying my mistakes in my normal charts and pictures, I'm just going to provide somewhat of a public service announcement:

Don't drink your calories.

It's way too hard to limit your intake, especially after the second or third drink.  If you do drink your calories, heading to a sushi restaurant with two other calorie-drinkers and ordering half the menu is probably not the brightest idea ever. At least I ordered my sushi with "no rice" (because heaven forbid I consume 1000 calories in sushi and also ingest white rice!), which by the way confuses the heck out of a waiter at a sushi restaurant. Sushi rolls sans rice does not translate well.

On Sunday, my rest day, and before the sushi scenario... I took a morning Zumba class, followed by 45 minutes of ice skating (fun!). I was surprised to see my heart rate at a steady 135-145 in the ice rink! When I showed my skating buddy, Ben, my heart rate monitor display, he said, "Your heart rate is only up due to pure fear (of falling)." He was probably right! It had been a good 15 years since I last wore ice skates and rentals aren't known for being awesome or fabulous.

  Personal Score:  Passing
(since I still had presence of mind to not order any rice)

I've been a little ashamed to write anything since Sunday. Although I went to Zumba and went ice skating, I did fore go a few hours at the gym in order to hang out with "the boys." When I first sat down, they kindly acknowledged that I was no longer drinking... which lasted all of about 10 minutes. There was something about it technically being my rest day and sitting in an Irish pub with a few pitchers of IPA in front of me. Next thing I know, I'm asking the waitress for a frosty pint glass. A few rounds later, I no longer cared about calories or exercise. 12 oz curls and walking home were the only activities on our agenda.

I had so much fun, but at about 9pm I texted my trainer and pretty much let him know that there was no way I was going to make it to our scheduled 7am session the next morning. I barely made it out of bed by 8:30am to meet a friend for shopping and breakfast today. We were also supposed to do P90X today, but I ran out of time before I had to leave for my optometrist and doctor appointments. In retrospect, I am sad at how many things were adversely affected by one night of drinking!

After my appointments, I met my trainer at a bar so that he could chat with me about life and motivate me to get back into the swing of things. My next appointment is 6am on Wednesday. He's showing up at my house, so I have no excuses.

As of this moment, I'm at 185.8 pounds. I still have a long way to go and I definitely have my struggles. This is my life, though... I'm worth more than I've given myself in my past. Time to treat myself like my body is the only home I'll ever have.

Until next time...

See you on the fit side!

-Heather

January 11 - 12, 2012: Personal Best Today and P90X Fit Test!

January 11-12, 2012:

Over the last two days, I have lost that last pound that was lingering since the night before New Year's Eve. Wow! 12 days later?!?! I hope I don't subject myself to a weekend like that again unless I can physically and emotionally handle it. I haven't reached that point yet. Ironically, I feel like I have more muscle than I did 12 days ago.

  

Approximately 1195 Calories

Approximately 1120 calories

• 1 mile on elliptical
• 2 miles at 11.5 incline on treadmill at 3.0
• 2.5 miles of intervals on the treadmill
• P90x Fit Test
• Some P90x Yoga
• Foam rolling for 15 minutes
• 1/2 mile walk

  Personal Score:  A today, D yesterday

January 11, 2012:

I had intended to hit the gym in the morning, but I had only 3 hours of sleep the night before. I wanted to hit the gym that night, but I passed out. So, yesterday was one of those unplanned rest days. Not much to write about unless you want to read about driving and sleeping.

I almost stopped at a fast food restaurant without even thinking. I found myself looking for a Taco Bell. What's strange is I don't even like fast food! I was just so hungry and so tired, I wasn't thinking about all the crap that's in pretty much anything affiliated with Taco Bell's menu. This was one day that laziness paid off. I was too lazy to leave the freeway and potentially hit more traffic, so I kept driving. Once I got home, I ate spinach lavash with onions and light cheese; a much better choice.

I believe I've correlated lack of sleep with the days that I struggle the most. I find that I'm lethargic and moody when I haven't had at least 7 hours of sleep in a night. This particular day was extremely difficult. Although, one positive moment (and always the moment I look forward to when traveling), was driving over the SF Bay Bridge and seeing the city and the bay in the distance.

I'm sure the people driving next to me were wondering why I was taking pictures! I was imagining the woman driving the SUV behind me yelling, "@(#$*!^* Tourists!" Hahaha.

After 3 hours of sleep and 6 hours of driving, I was not in the mood to see or talk to anyone. I turned down a few fun outings with friends and requests for visits. I don't like being around my friends when I'm down because I'm afraid they won't be able to accept that side of me. Even as I type this, it sounds crazy! My friends aren't superficial and I know they accept all of me, no matter what. Why does my brain go so haywire sometimes? The toughest part about dipping into those lows is that I know that I'm not myself, so I beat myself up over feeling the way I'm feeling and try to force myself to snap out of it! It's a vicious cycle.

January 12, 2012:

I got a lot of sleep last night (finally). After all the driving yesterday to work in the SF Bay Area, I came home and passed out on my couch around 9:30pm.

I woke up to another beautiful sunrise and soaked it all in with a smile while I prepared my egg white sandwich for breakfast.

Something about seeing the sunrise is so energizing and uplifting!

I hit the gym pretty hard this morning, followed by a P90X fit test and "sampling" of some of the workout DVDs. I was able to shave another 7.5 miles off my Like-a-thon challenge total, which felt amazing! I had a personal best during that workout! For my last 30 minutes, I did intervals, starting at 5 mins and going down to 1 min with a 2 min rest inbetween and increasing my speed each time. I started at 5.0 mph and ended at 7.0 mph. However, when I started the 7.0 mph run for my last 1minute interval, I realized I could probably go 2 minutes, so I tried and I did it! I was so proud of myself and I felt incredible!

Instead of my normal snack and lunch, I decided to try Shakeology. I can't believe how good it tasted! I felt like I was drinking frozen dark chocolate mousse with strawberries! It definitely felt like I was being bad!

Quite a bit of fiber in that drink... I recommend starting with half a pack for people not used to fiber! The shake helped stave off my hunger for a good 3.5 hours. Not bad!

Afterward, I went to my friend's house and we decided to explore P90X. It was actually a lot of fun! I did the fit test with him and I think our competitive natures had us doing more than we would have on our own. I was surprised that I was able to hold the wall squat for a 1:45 (he held for 1:10), even though I felt like my legs were Jell-O after just 15 seconds. I only have a 9.5" vertical (he had a 17.5"!), but I did 29 push-ups (I could only do 3 before Biggest Loser Resort) and my heart rate recovered from a high of 165 to 89 after 4 minutes of rest, and my resting heart rate is 49 bpm. All in all, I can tell that I've improved immensely, fitness-wise, over the last month.

I'm excited about getting more sleep and discovering all of the things my body can do! I just hope I am able to find a balance with work to schedule the fitness part of my life into my day. I feel SO much better after a workout and there is a true sense of accomplishment when I take off a shirt that is drenched in sweat.

Special shout-outs to Meg and Amanda for being such a major support system to me this week! You two are incredible and I am so fortunate to have you both in my life! Your words of encouragement propel me through difficult times and your actions inspire me to become a better version of myself. Thank you for letting me be part of your worlds! I love you both!

With all my ups and downs over the last two weeks, I hope I've at least conveyed that if you just take this process one day at a time, you can be successful even if it feels like you're experiencing multiple failures. It's only truly a failure if you don't pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. So, make tomorrow a new day and believe in the process. I'll end with a quote I heard almost 15 years ago that has stuck with me:

"It works if you work it, so work it 'cause you're worth it!"

See you on the fit side!

-Heather

At Home - Days 19 & 20 (The Garmin and Great Hike-spectations)

Still no change in my weight, but I know why and I just have to change it. Given my current state of mind and lack of rigorous exercise, I am OK with that for today. Tomorrow is a different day. My Garmin arrived, so I will be able to know exactly the amount of calories I'm burning again. I've been without a monitor of any sort since my Bodybugg pooped out during Week 2 at BLR! Obviously, this is not conducive to weight loss, so I'm excited to be able to track my burn once again!

Which one should I wear today? :-)

Bad news? My planned activity for today (a hike) turned out to be far more inactive than I anticipated. I barely registered a half mile on my distance counter, plus I was in a car for more than three hours. I didn't even bother putting in the half mile from today. That's almost embarrassing. Being sedentary and bored was exhausting. When I got home, I did laundry, dishes and little else.

Good news? I made multiple plans for varied workouts tomorrow AND I got my Garmin Heart Rate Monitor to work today! I can't say it was easy... not a very intuitive device. However, I think it will do the job nicely for appropriately tracking my heart rate, calories, and distance. Oh...I also created this collage from inspirational quotes, in order to get motivated to workout tomorrow morning and every morning thereafter. It's a compilation of many quotes I've already used in my blog, and a few new ones:

I posted one on the front door, the fridge door, and between the two mirrors in the bathroom. If this doesn't work (at least in the short run), then someone needs to physically beat me over the head and drag my arse out of my apartment!

  

I got a new application on my iPhone, called NetDiary (suggested by Marisa). I like it so far!

I'll be posting screen shots here instead of listing out the food in text, unless it's too difficult to read. Please let me know in the comments section whether you prefer the text.

Approximately 1406 Calories

Approximately 800 calories on Friday (Yoga and Running)

• 60 minutes of Power Vinyasa
• 1 mile on treadmill 

Approximately 200 calories on Saturday- Not really worth mentioning (plus 2000 laughing calories) 

• Museum and Historic Site Hike
• Laughing my booty off with Meg for most of the night! Bwaahahaha! She accidentally called me a "HOE" on FaceBook, but meant to say, "How?"... and it was allllll downhill from there!

  Personal Score:  D
(I don't think I need to explain this one)

I woke up at 6am to meet up with my hiking group at REI. We left at around 8am to head to Oakland and Martinez for a hike around John Muir's estate and to venture through an exhibit/museum... What I pictured in my head and what actually occurred were two very different things. I should have known something was amiss when I was the only person who showed up to REI in workout clothes instead of street clothes.

After almost two hours on the road, we had 45 minutes to rush through John Muir's estate in Martinez before heading to Oakland to see the exhibit. The original plan stated there was a one mile loop we would take around the estate in order to get some exercise. This was supposed to be the main portion of the hike. I had pictured myself running this loop, preferably at a 6.0 pace, in 10 minutes or so.

Ummm...no. Not so much. We were given brochures by rangers, to take a very slow tour of John Muir's house. If I were at all interested in history, I'm sure I would have found this somewhat fascinating. But, I'm not. Not even a little. Nope. All I could think of was how I'd skipped 62 days of class my sophomore year of high school so that I could eat doughnuts instead of attending class... especially History class (although the teacher was super cool. He called himself "Mr. MOT," which stood for Mean Old Teacher). With 62 missed days, that was a lot of doughnuts. Hey! It's all making sense now! My aversion to history is the root of my weight issue! Problem solved! Ha! <I wish it were that simple>

!!!BAAH!...OMGWTF?!? ...I'll NEVER get used to a sudden loud voice coming from my ceiling in the midst of dead silence at some ungawdly hour!

The fire alarm is going off in my building and the front desk sounds panicked over the intercom. ("sounds" is in bold because I know the person announcing and I also know he's irritated and not panicked, but it's probably freaking a few people out in the building right now. <uncontrollable evil snicker>) The sirens blaring in the background are adding to the ambiance of what paranoid people would construe as a grave situation... This should be fun!

Usually, when one hears an alarm, he or she would attempt to vacate the area of potential danger. However, the alarm in this building is like the little boy who cried "wolf!" It seems to activate almost every Saturday when some moron decides to smoke pot in his/her room, right under a smoke detector, then vehemently denies it when a security guard arrives and encounters the shirtless wonder, speaking in dialect like "Bill and Ted" with slits for eyes, a bong on the table and Visine on the counter. I digress...

Surprise. Surprise. Same irritated voice now sounds exhausted and frustrated while announcing it was a false alarm... I am now texting him and saying, "You really don't want me to sleep, do you?" to which he replied "Sorry. LOL" ...Wait... he's announcing it again.... and again... and... one more time. I fired off another text, "Three times? Really? Does that make the 'false alarm' a False Alarm?" No response. I'm sure he's making cat noises <reaaeewwrrr!> while reading his text message.

I will undoubtedly die a fiery death one night because I've slept through the umpteenth alarm and have become so desensitized to the tone that it actually sounds more like a whispered lullaby. At least I know the Fire Dept's response time is less than two minutes! It makes me feel safe to know that within two minutes, I can summon a bunch of men with big hoses. <bad joke, I know> Although I'm pretty sure my only way down from this floor would be a helicopter or a "Geronimo!" Maybe I should go buy myself a base-jumping parachute?

Back to the non-hike tour... Michelle and I had fun taking silly pictures :-) This was the best part of my day before my uncontrollable laugh-fest and Twitter Blast with Meg. Here are some pics of the John Muir mansion, Michelle and I kissing John Muir's statue and each of us pretending to fall into a glacier:

Thanks, Michelle, for driving and for turning an otherwise boring day something fun! Hope to see you on the Riverwalk!

That's all I have for tonight. Hopefully tomorrow's blog will be much more fitness-oriented!

See you on the fit side!

-Heather